Neighborhood/city rec's requested for late 30's couple (no children) relocating to SLC for employment. (Salt Lake City: rentals)

[Cuhparks]

Hi Everyone,

My husband and I are potentially relocating to the SLC area from the East Coast for work. My husband's proscpective job will be in West Valley City.

We're in our late 30's and do not have children. We have 2 dogs. We are not religious, if that matters. We'd like to keep my husband's commute to 15 minutes or less each way. I work from home 80% of the time and travel the other 20%, so a commute is not a factor for me.

Because I am in the house all day, I'd love if we could find an area that has nearby coffee shops or places to get lunch just so I can get out of the house during the day once in awhile (walk, bike ride, or even short car ride is fine). With the exception of that, we're the type who tend to stay home on weeknights, but we like to do a myriad of activities on weekends: restaurants, hiking, bars, bike riding.

Before we buy a house, we'd like to rent a 2-3 BR, dog-friendly house for a year while we explore the different neighborhoods and towns. (One of the bedrooms would be my office, and if possible, we'd love to have a guest bedroom since we know family and friends will visit us). We'd like to keep rent under $1200, if possible, especially since we'd like to save as much as we can in anticipation of a home purchase. Is that realistic, rent-wise, for a good area?

Given the above, are there specific areas we should look for rentals? I went on Craigslist and became completely overwhelmed at the number of cities and neighborhoods that popped up. It's hard to pinpoint where to live when I have no idea what each area is like, or its proximity to West Valley City.

*I'll continue to peruse the forum more, but it seemed like most posts were for people younger than my husband and I, or people our age who had children and school systems to consider, etc.

Thanks so much!
C

[CCSLC]

If you want easy access (bike ride, walk, or 5 minute car ride) to cafes, restaurants, and bars, then you are automatically limited to a handful of areas in the valley, generally in Salt Lake City proper. The rest of the valley is subject to serious sprawl and a lack of "nearby" anything but big box stores and strip malls. I work from home once a week or so, and I'd go crazy if I were not IN the city doing that. Working from home in suburbia sounds like a nightmare!

ZIP codes to consider:
84105 (Sugar House)
84106 (Sugar House/Millcreek)
84108 (East Sugar House/Yalecrest)
84102 (Central City)
84103 (Avenues/Capitol Hill)
84111 (Downtown)

$1,200 a month for a 3BR home will be tough in many of these areas (84103 and 84108 especially); $1,500 may be more realistic. Alternately, you may have better luck looking for a 2BR in 84102, which has areas still gentrifying (don't worry---it's still a very safe area, and closer to the dog park!).

The commute from these areas to WVC will be right around 15 minutes, depending on how far into WVC (Maverik Center/Valley Fair Mall is must closer to town than, say, the WV Recreation Center in west WV). Your husband will be commuting opposite traffic, so that will help, too. And I often ride TRAX to WVC now that the green TRAX line is operational---again, this is only convenient if your final destination is on the east end of WVC.

Regardless, I would not recommend living in WVC; it is too far to recreation if you're hikers, there is really no place for biking, and there is little attractive in the area as far as walkable cafes, restaurants, bars, etc.

[Cuhparks]

Thank you so much! Your response certainly helps! I will check these zip codes out. I have heard of Sugar House by reading others' forum posts.

I appreciate your honesty regarding our rent budget. Do you know of any "up and coming" areas of the valley where restaurants/coffee shops are popping up? Or just regular suburbia that is nice but doesn't have much closeby? Since our goal is to save $ and buy a home in a year, I'm just curious if it's worth it to try to keep within budget in an area that may not have much now, but most likely will months from now. Currently, I am in the middle of suburbia on the East Coast. The closest thing to me is a 10 minute ride to McDonald's lol. So, it's not terrible if we have to stick with suburbia/not close to much if we have to do so.

Thank you so much!

[CCSLC]

Sent you a DM.

For "up and coming," (besides Central City, which I've mentioned) you could look into Rose Park (ZIP 84116). Fewer commercial properties around, but a very quaint residential area. It gets a bad rap on this forum sometimes because people confuse it with Glendale (ZIP 84104), which is a rather undesirable area. But Rose Park is really unrelated to Glendale and it's quite lovely.